


Off in the Wild

by countrygirlsfun



Series: Stiles is a Badass [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Coercion, M/M, Sniper Stiles Stilinski, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 19:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3083660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countrygirlsfun/pseuds/countrygirlsfun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles should have known better than to get so cocky in his reputation as a sniper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off in the Wild

People take notice of special things. A beautiful sunrise, a fresh snow, an evening on the lake. A beautiful dress, a well-designed building a painting hanging in a museum. In the same way people recognize greatness in other people as well. The architect, the painter, the designer. But in Beacon Hills, being a talented sharpshooter should not have been something that was noticed.

This is not something that Stiles thought to expect. He didn't think his skills with a sniper rifle would ever be noticed outside of his pack. So of course word gets around about him. That there's this kid in northern California that runs with a pack of wolves. Who trained under a cop and an Army Ranger sniper. That he can defend his pack from wolves and hunters alike using deadly force only when necessary. A young man who is involved with the pack's alpha but as equals not as a pack bitch. The human, who earned his spot of leadership in a pack of bitten wolves led by the sole survivor of the Hale family.

But in Beacon Hills, Stiles is just Stiles. The pack is enjoying a time of peace because they've dealt with enough pack territory battles lately that word's gotten around not to mess with the Hale pack in Beacon Hills. They all make it through senior year and graduate with no problems. With the amount of supernatural traffic that has gone on through their town it's not hard to see why hunters would be drawn there as well.

It's this group of hunters from Minnesota of all places that brings the problems. Although when Stiles thinks about, Minnesota might actually be a place with a high werewolf population. Mainly because, well, wolves _actually_ live there. They're led by a man named Hanson and Stiles is the only one that laughs at the big burly blond man with the name that screams Norwegian. They're nice enough people but the pack doesn't really understand why they're in town. The last pack they ran out was over a week ago; they're a little late if that was what they'd come to town for.

They have a meeting with the hunters and the pack and the Argents. Apparently they just wanted to discuss the relationship between the pack and the hunters. Something about building better relations with the pack in their town. It all sounds admirable and Stiles stops paying attention. He's been trying to find a new scope lately for his rifle and he's a bit preoccupied with continuing his search on his phone during the meeting. He blindly follows later when they all get up to leave, not knowing what their next move is. Derek gives him a look like he's hopeless when he asks in the car.

"They want to see how we work together in a fight." Derek explains.

Stiles gets to use his rifle, to his pleasure, with rubber bullets that will do little more than bruise. They all drive into the preserve and make their way to a clearing on Hale land that most of the battles go down on. Once they're all at the ruins of the house and their cars are parked they make their way on foot towards the clearing.

Stiles slips into what he refers to as his 'badass mode,' (much to the annoyance to Derek) and slips quietly away from the group to find the certain tree he prefers to scale. By the time he's perched on his branch the rest of the group is just coming into the clearing. It’s actually kind of weird to fake fight. It's a lot like when they would practice plays in lacrosse but worse because in lacrosse you still would run the play and in this mock fight they can't actually fight. But apparently the Minnesota hunters learn what they want and the fight stops.

Stiles had only taken one shot when a hunter got too aggressive with Isaac. But he shot him in the shoulder and didn't have a need to shoot again. He crawled out of his tree and made his way to the clearing. He startles one of the foot soldiers, as he refers to them, when he appears in the clearing and chuckles softly as he makes his way to stand next to Derek.

Hanson's hunters are starting to act…shifty, Stiles notices.

The pack and the Argents have left and it's just Derek and Stiles, Hanson and two of his men. They get to a patch of trail that narrows with rocks on either side. They're nasty, Stiles knows, he's fallen on them a time or two. Derek tenses when the hunters are in his blind spot and shoves Stiles in front of him. Well, at least he noticed something off with them too.

Derek actually reaches out and puts a hand on his waist. Stiles looks over his shoulder and notices his boyfriend's worried expression and Hanson a few yards behind them. He's too busy trying to decide what that means that he doesn't see the hunter to their left throw a flash bang at their feet. The force throws him back into the rocks. He sees Derek land next to him and stay down before his eyes drift shut. He feels a prick in his shoulder and his body being dragged before everything goes black.

*

Everything is fuzzy for a while. He can hear shouts and growls. Then just shouting. Then it all goes silent.

He wakes up. He wishes for the darkness to come back. It feels like someone ripped his chest apart. He's expecting his head to hurt and maybe it does but he can't tell over the fire burning behind his ribs. It's like there's flames licking at his heart and his ribs. But it feels like a pulling too, like there's a person on each arm yanking him in two. He curls in on himself and grits his teeth trying not to cry out. He doesn't know how long he lays there curled into a tight ball while he waits for the pain to go away. It takes what feels like hours but the fire burns out until its closer to a steady smoldering around his heart. Once he's not solely focused on the pain in his body he becomes more aware of his surroundings.  

He feels that he's in a bed but it's too soft to be his own and the sheets feel too scratchy to be Derek's. He opens his eyes slowly and finds he's in a room that's utterly and completely unfamiliar. He tamps down the instant panic and looks around. It feels like it takes far too much effort to sit up. Like his body wants to stay lying down instead of listening to his brain to move. He does move though it just feels weird. He looks around the room. And it's like he's trying to pay attention to every detail now to make up for ignoring everything back in California.

The bed has an intricate quilt on it, curtains at the windows, walls a plain tan color with a painting of a cabin over the bed that has 'Terry Redlin' written underneath on the frame mat. He crawls out of the bed and when he looks out the window he sees trees but not like his forest. It's all pine trees and brush and bushes and there's pickup trucks sitting in the driveway. In the room he finds a dresser, an empty closet, there's a clock on his bedside table and a bookshelf full of books. He discovers that Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are included in the collection when he hears a beeping. He attributes it to the clock but it sounds weird; something familiar but it doesn't belong on a clock, maybe something else. Then the door opens and a woman walks in.

She's a housewife in every way that Victoria Argent wasn't. She reminds him of his own mom for a brief heart aching moment. She's wearing jeans and a t-shirt with her long brown hair braided back into a ponytail. She's drying her hands on a dishtowel and looks at him with an odd expression. She's not annoyed or mad just resigned that he's in her house apparently.

"Mark wants you in the office, dear."

Stiles doesn't think to argue or sass because if his suspicions are correct he's in _Minnesota_ with the hunters who attacked him and Derek. She gestures to the hallway and he follows. For all his bravado when he has the pack at his back he feels incredibly small and afraid right now.

In his defense though, he's completely unarmed, doesn't have his phone, and for all appearances has been kidnapped by hunters to Minnesota. This is the shit Dateline specials are about. He walks past her into the hallway and turns to the left like she'd pointed. She stops him with a hand on his arm when he gets to a door that's partially open.

"He's in there, hon."

He hears the all too familiar voice come from within the room.

"Oh, for god's sake, Shelly it's not like he's a guest."

Stiles is all prepared for her to cower or simply ignore the abuse for some reason but she pushes the door open with her foot and pushes him in ahead of her.

"Fuck off Mark. I can be kind to whoever I want." She snarls before slamming to door behind her.

He's reminded of his mom and how she wouldn't take crap from anyone. People called her a pushover because she'd help anybody with anything. Even if it took away from what she needed to be doing. It's just another stab at his heart.

He turns back to Mark and watches him flick through a file folder.

"I knew within minutes of seeing you with your pack that it wasn't going to be easy to get you to come work for me. You were too important to them. But I need your certain skill set here and this was the best possible solution to get you here."

Stiles barely controls the urge to roll his eyes. Really? They couldn't have just, I don't know, asked?

“What do you need my skill set for? I don’t kill werewolves for no reason. I won’t.”

“You will if you want to live.”

“So I kill or am killed. Original. What happens if I run away?”

“Excellent question. We will find you.”

“You’re so confident in that fact.”

“Well the tracker in your thigh gives me confidence. As well as the fact that if you try and remove it you’ll bleed to death before you can run a hundred yards.”

They go over the particulars then of what is required and what isn’t allowed. He’s required to go with the hunting group on all excursions. He is to have his weapon but it will be stored and locked away when they get back to base with Mark being the only one with a key. He won’t try and run or try and remove the tracker. He won’t be able to contact California in any way.

That turns out to be the worst part. Outside communication is a bust. Anytime he tries to call California, the call ‘could not be completed as dialed’ and Stiles misses a meal. He tries to write but he thinks those get intercepted too. He gets ordered to write certain things back home though. Mark has him write letters to tell his dad and his pack that he isn’t coming back. That he doesn’t need help. But Stiles worked in a cypher even under Mark’s watchful eye. He’s got no way to get someone to come rescue him.

*

With no hope of a rescue and no visible way out times starts to pass at an odd pace. He doesn’t know how long it takes to decide the only way out is to kill everyone. It’s not really logical or a good plan but he can’t get word out and no one has tried to find him; his options are to keep killing for this hunting family, kill himself, or kill to get out.

He thought about just ending it. It would inflict the least amount of damage. He doesn’t think he could stomach killing that many people. But every time he’d lay down at night to think about it he wraps up a blanket and swears he can smell Derek’s aftershave. And both times he sat with his gun just thinking about pointing it at himself he heard Derek’s voice in his head begging him not to leave.

And that’s what it came down to. He couldn’t leave if there was even a possibility of him getting home to Derek. Derek lost enough in his life so far and Stiles isn’t going to be on that list for him. So option three is the plan he enacts. There’s six total people he has to kill to be able to get back home. He figures elaborate plans aren’t going to get him far when he has so little to work with. He’s always been good at coming up with things as he goes along anyway.

There’s a cold snap that’s sudden and lasting. It snows more than he’s ever seen in his life. There’s inches of thick, white, wet snow and it gets on everything. He takes out the big fat guy by messing with the treads on his boots. The next time they’re out, the dude slips in the rocky terrain and goes down hard. Stiles watches his scull hit a particularly sharp rock and the man doesn’t get up again.

 The next man is just a newbie that Stiles doesn’t take the effort to cover in a fight with a pair of feral omegas. He doesn’t watch as the kid’s spine gets clawed out, just takes down the omega after the fact. He doesn’t get fed anything beyond jerky and water for the next three days. He stays in bed for most of it anyway so it doesn’t make much of a difference. But then misery gets added to his guilt when the damn sheets smell like his body wash at home. It’s lemon and sharp and fresh and he only cries a little bit.

In the next battle it ends with two more dead but only one at the hands of Stiles. An impending thunderstorm covered the sound of his extra shot. He was able to blame the speed of the hunter and the wolf grappling on his misaiming. The second was killed out and out by the omega just because he was a dumb fuck who turned his back and lowered his weapon.

 

So suddenly it’s down to just Stiles, Mark and Shelly. This is when it gets hard. Shelly never really did anything to him or was very active; she was just married to the head guy. It’s almost too easy to break into the armory, take his weapon and go into the master bedroom. Mark is sound asleep but he’s alone in the bed. Before Stiles can turn to find Shelly, she comes out of the bathroom that’s attached to the bedroom. She doesn’t look particularly surprised. She just shakes her head seeming resigned.

 “Do it. And take any truck you want but mine.”

Stiles nods, determination rising again.

“Sorry about your bed.”

He pulls the trigger and just like that it’s over. The gun goes with him as well as anything that had his finger prints on it. He goes out and jumps in a truck and starts driving west. 

*

Stiles goal was to drive straight through. He didn't want to stop for anything. He made it to the mountain passes and realized he needed to sleep if he was going to make it alive though. He stopped in Yellowstone and slept in the backseat of the truck, locking himself in the vehicle. He slept until whenever he woke up; he didn't set an alarm, it didn't matter. Time really is an imposed construct right now for him anyway.

He wakes up 4 hours later, crawls into the driver seat and goes for the last part of his journey. He should have slept more. By the time he hits the California state line he knows he's in trouble. He turns the air on as cold as it'll go and has the radio blasting. It snaps him awake enough that he makes it to Beacon Hills and to the Hale house. It's like 3am when he shuts the truck off in Derek's driveway and crawls towards the house. Who knew exhaustion could hit so hard? The front porch ends up looking comfortable and he collapses right in front of the door. 

When he opens his eyes next he's on the couch in the living room and that's- Ok he may have expected a bed but he's just glad to be there at all. Everybody is in the living room except- well except Derek but everybody is scattered throughout the room and nobody will look at him. He yawns and sits up rubbing his eyes. He looks around; nobody will look at him. Nobody that is except Erica. Erica is staring him down like he's a threat she wants to rip apart. Well at least that would be interaction. 

"Hi-"

"Don't." She cuts in, voice practically dripping with venom. "Why are you here Stiles?" She snarls. 

Huh. That, is not the welcome he was looking for. His first instinct is to get mad and indignant. Good thing he's been suppressing his first instincts for a while now. He still sounds pissed off when he says,

"Why should I not be here?" 

"Why- are you fucking joking?" She roars and then they're both standing and in each other's faces. Nobody moves to stop her from possibly tearing him into ribbons. Huh. 

"You left! You ran off with those hunters. You destroyed Derek with that note and you disappeared! No contact for months. We didn't know if you were alive if you were dead. Why you left in the first place. So don't come back here pretending like everything is normal, fucker, you who nearly destroyed this pack!"

"Oh my god what note?! I didn't leave a note!"

"Save it, we _saw_ it! Telling Derek you needed to get out. You couldn't deal with this life anymore. You couldn't deal with pretending to love an _animal_."

That- that takes the breath right out of Stiles chest and he deflates instantly. "What?" He says though it's little more than a croak. He sinks back down on the couch with his head in his hands. 

"He actually believed I would-" He looks up and now everybody is watching him. "If that's what you think- you're not going to- someone- any of you listen to my heart so you know I'm not lying, please." Boyd nods and Stiles looks back to Erica who's still fuming. "I didn't leave Beacon Hills by choice. After the flash bang the next thing I remember is waking up feeling like someone ripped half my chest out in a bed in fucking north woods Minnesota." Their eyes all go wide with shock and he figures they were all tuned in to his heart beating. "I didn't leave a note. I was dragged from the forest out of California and half way across the country. They made me write letters to you saying stuff like I wasn't coming back that I hated you all. But I always worked in a cypher so you could read the truth and find me. Didn't you guys get any letters?" 

"No. We didn't." Stiles whips around when he hears Derek's voice behind him. His expression is unreadable and before Stiles can say anything Derek turns on his heel and walks back out of the room.  

Stiles had envisioned his homecoming; this wasn't it. Of all his expectations and hopes, having Derek take one disgusted look at him and walk out was not part of the plan. He turned back around and stared at his interlaced hands. He felt small, and out of place and not like he was home. He couldn't wrap his brain around how they could believe he'd just leave. That that note was how he really felt? Had they always questioned him? His loyalty? That hurt almost worse than the ache in his chest.

And the ache. Fuck, it had finally calmed down from the searing, burning sensation in his ribs and chest. It went from the flames licking at his insides to a pool of slow burning embers. But seeing Derek, its like someone blew across the embers and they all flared to life. He rubs absently at his chest trying to think. His pack- the pack hate him probably. That's not something that they're going to be able to just change when out of the blue they find out the truth.

Then he realizes-

"Oh God, what does my dad think?" He jumps to his feet hardly waiting for a response already moving to the door.

He hears Scott say behind him, "He knows what the note said."

Stiles is out the door and running to his truck. Fuck the pack right now he needs his dad. He can guess that the wolves believe him. They heard his heart; they heard the truth. He can't help but feel that they don't want to believe him though. They'd rather keep hating him. That's what it looks like from where he sits.

His dad has to believe him. His dad has to know that he wasn't capable of being that terrible of a person to the people he loves. He's desperate and it shows when he looks down and he's going 25 over the speed limit driving to the station. He slams on the brakes; he can't afford to get pulled over right now. He's got to see his dad.

Somewhere along the way Stiles had stopped thinking about what his dad was doing, what he thought had happened. Now Stiles knows why no one ever found him: his pack would be the last people on earth to look for him. If they really believed the letter there was no way that they'd even bother to try. He realizes he's there and quickly pulls into a spot and parks.

He doesn't notice the looks people are giving him in his mad dash to get inside. He walks to the front desk not even stopping just saying "The sheriff is in his office right?" and keeps going. His dad _is_ in his office luckily, well right outside the door talking to a deputy. Stiles watches his dad's eyes widen when he sees him.

Stiles really needs his dad to hug him. Like yesterday. Instead he gets a hard look and ushered into the office. Once he's seated in front of the desk he has to wait for his dad to finish with the deputy.

His dad never makes him wait.

Stiles goes over the whole thing from the flash bang to waking up in Minnesota to the terms of his confinement to his plan to get out. He tells his dad about how if he just looks at missing persons or obituaries in that area of Minnesota that he’ll see. He’ll see the people Stiles had to kill to get back. And the letters he pleads with his dad to reread the letters. Look for the clues of the cypher. It’s there it’s all in there. He just has to look.

But his dad doesn’t break, he stays hard faced and unrelenting in his disbelief. He hands Stiles a wad of cash and tells him to get a room at the hotel and not to leave town.

Then he’s being ushered from the room and back to his truck. He can’t- he can’t understand. Even his dad doesn’t believe him. He drives around aimlessly until he gets near a hotel and goes to check in. He gets his room and showers and then collapses on the bed hoping when he wakes up that this is all just a misunderstanding and the pack and his _family_ will be ready to believe him.

Of course he wakes up and everything is still the same. Derek stops by once to tell him not to bother coming back; their bond is broken and he doesn’t want to change that. Stiles hangs around for a couple weeks but being in his hometown without his friends around or his dad is getting to be too much. The whole town seems to be against him now too.

*

He doesn’t know how long he’s been back when he finds himself in the woods with his handgun. He’s out by the lake where he used to train. His sitting there, thinking once again about just ending it. God, it has to be better than living like this. He’s about to do it when he hears someone coming towards him. His heartbeat starts to pick up. It really takes off when Derek strides into the clearing. He starts breathing quicker and quicker.

“Don’t- don’t try and stop me.”

He’s close to hyperventilating now but Derek just shrugs and says, “I wasn’t going to.”

And that- well now Stiles is panicking because why would Derek come out here and watch him kill himself without trying to stop him. He feels the panic take over his thoughts and he sees Derek just stand there unaffected. Stiles drops the gun or at least he thinks he does and lets the panic wash over him. He doesn’t make any effort to calm himself down and when the darkness approaches he doesn’t fight passing out.

Maybe he won’t wake up.

*

Of course, he does wake up and it’s to the beeping of a heart monitor. And that’s just plain confusing because Derek wouldn’t bring him to a hospital for a panic attack. Hell, he was willing to let Stiles die out in the woods why would he care enough to bring him in.

His eyes are heavy as he fights to open them in the dim room. What he sees is baffling. Derek is there and he looks _ecstatic._ His smile is huge and his eyes are misting up and he looks so utterly happy and Stiles doesn’t understand. Derek has one of Stiles’ hands in both of his when he pulls himself together enough to speak.

“Stiles? Stiles can you hear me? What do you remember?”

Derek must read the confusion on his face because he doesn’t make him answer.

“You remember me?”

Stiles nods.

“You remember the mock fight?

Stiles scrunches his eyebrows in confusion and croaks, “Yes.”

“Do you remember the flash bang? It knocked us down and you fell in the rocks. It knocked me around enough I wasn’t steady enough to stop them when they shot you up with something. But by the time I was back up Scott was back and we got you out of there and Chris took care of the hunters. You weren’t waking up so we brought you here. You’ve been in a coma for over a month now.”

Derek still looks so happy and Stiles wants to believe him so bad but a huge part of him is waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under him. He’s waiting for Derek to say, ‘just kidding! We all still hate you.’ The thought that it could have all been in his head, some coma dream, is just too much.

He rolls away from Derek and starts crying. His silent tears turn into sobs and Derek comes around the bed and puts his hands on Stiles shoulders trying to get him to look at him.

“Stiles? What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

But Stiles just closes his eyes and doesn’t respond. He feels Derek’s hands leave his shoulders and hears him call out for Melissa. It occurs to him that in his memories Melissa wasn’t there. She didn’t tell him she didn’t love him anymore or that she didn’t believe him. He feels her hands on his face brushing away the tears gently and opens his eyes to see her face. She’s looking at him with such happiness and love just like Derek did and he puts a hand over hers where it rests on his cheek.

“Are you in pain Stiles?”

He shakes his head without dislodging their hands.

“Did you have nightmares while you were out? You always had nightmares as a little kid.”

“I think so," he says shakily.

“And you don’t know if this is a dream or if this is real, right?”

He nods and the tears start again because this has to be real, he doesn’t want to go back to that place.  
He can’t deal with Derek not loving him.  
Can’t live without his dad’s trust.

“Stiles, sweetie, remember when you had that nightmare at my house? What did we do? We counted your fingers right? And we read a book. Because you have extra fingers in dreams and you can’t read, right? So here. Stiles count my fingers.”

She pulls her hands back in front of his face and he grabs her wrists as he counts to 10. 10. 10 fingers. He’s not dreaming. Oh god it wasn’t real. He’s still crying but it’s a distinct shift to tears of relief. Melissa doesn’t leave and Derek hovers. What feels like moments after he’s stopped crying and is pulling himself together his dad bursts in the door in his pajamas. It’s all he can do to not start right back up again when his dad pulls him into a hug.

The doctors take their sweet time examining him and announcing he’ll stay in the hospital and start his physical therapy to work on any atrophy that occurred while he was asleep. But as soon as they’re all done the pack starts trickling in one by one. Everyone is so relieved and happy that Stiles is really starting to be convinced that this is real.

*

After everyone goes home for the night Derek crawls up on the bed with Stiles and pulls him close. He goes slow but he starts telling Stiles everything that happend while he was dreaming.

“Your heart stopped. Right at the beginning. Just, slowed down and you flat lined. They had to shock your chest until it started beating again. Then after two days I got so fucking annoyed with your monitor they muted it. A week in and the air conditioning broke and it was like ice in here. I brought you that blanket from home that smells like us. At one point they were trying different things to help you wake up and they tried something that made it all worse and I spent three days in that chair without leaving begging you to stay with me. I brought in your favorite body wash and Melissa used it when you got a sponge bath. And then for the past few days your heart was slowing down like you were giving up until today when it went crazy like you were panicking and then you opened your eyes. I missed you so much Stiles. Please believe me this is real. I love you, and I need you to know this is real. Whatever happened in your dream _wasn’t_. Please, please believe me.”

Stiles might just be convinced.

“I- I’ll tell you about it all once I’m out of here. I love you Derek. I- I missed you so damn much. But, I believe you.”

Derek sighs in relief.

"Thank God," he mutters. "I promise Stiles, we're not going to let anything happen like this again. You're too important not to protect better than we did."

Stiles can't help but think that if he hadn't been so important in the first place none of this would have happened. But right now he's content to bask in the love radiating off Derek and let himself rest in the knowledge that he is loved by the people he loves the most.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea and I thought I'd finish and post it before I gave up on it. Sorry for all the Minnesota jokes.


End file.
